Methods and systems for recommending to a first user media assets for inclusion in a playlist for a second user based on the second user&#39;s viewing activity

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for providing a first user with recommendations of media assets for inclusion in a playlist for a second user based on the second user&#39;s viewing activity. These systems and methods receive, from the second user, an expression of disinterest in a media asset included in the playlist for the second user, update a user profile associated with the second user based on the expression of disinterest, and determine a recommendation for another media asset based on the updated user profile associated with the second user. The systems and methods provide the recommendation to the first user. By recommending media assets that the second user is least likely to object to, these systems and methods reduce the frequency of disruptive requests for media assets from the second user.

BACKGROUND

Parents may create playlists for their children so that the children canview approved content without continuously having to request permissionfrom the parents to view the content. However, because of children'srapidly changing tastes in content, it can be very difficult for parentsto identify content that their children will not object to. This problemis further exacerbated by the plethora of content available to choosefrom. If parents continuously include content in their children'splaylist that their children do not like, they will receive frequentrequests from their children for new content. This can be verydisruptive to the current activities that parents and children areengaging in and a source of frustration for both parties.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are provided herein for providing a first user withrecommendations of media assets for inclusion in a playlist for a seconduser based on the second user's viewing activity. These systems andmethods receive, from the second user, an expression of disinterest in amedia asset included in the playlist for the second user, update a userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest, and determine a recommendation for another media assetbased on the updated user profile associated with the second user. Thesesystems and methods then generate for display for the first user therecommendation for another media asset.

An interactive media guidance application receives, from the first user,a selection of a plurality of media assets to be included in theplaylist for the second user. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may generate for display a plurality of media assetidentifiers (e.g., text listings, graphical listings, audio listings andother suitable identifiers) and corresponding selectable options (e.g.,“select,” “add to playlist,” and other suitable options) to allow thefirst user to select the plurality of media assets for inclusion in theplaylist. For example, the interactive media guidance application maygenerate for display media asset identifiers for media assets A throughZ along with a selectable “add to playlist” option corresponding to eachof these media asset identifiers. The interactive media guidanceapplication may receive, from the first user (e.g., Mom), a selection ofthe selectable “add to playlist” options corresponding to media assetidentifiers for media assets A, B and C.

The interactive media guidance application generates for display, forthe second user, the plurality of media assets in the playlist. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay the media asset identifiers corresponding to media assets A, Band C for the second user (e.g., Teddy). The interactive media guidanceapplication receives, from the second user, an expression of disinterestin a first media asset of the plurality of media assets. For example,the interactive media guidance application may receive, from Teddy, anexpression of disinterest in media asset A. An expression of disinterestin a media asset is any suitable means of communicating that the mediaasset fails to satisfy the second user in some aspect.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving a requestfrom the second user to remove the first media asset from the playlistprior to playback of the first media asset. The interactive mediaguidance application may generate for display a variety of selectableoptions corresponding to each media asset identifier in the playlist forthe second user. For example, the interactive media guidance applicationmay generate for display selectable options “play” and “remove fromplaylist” corresponding to media asset identifier for media asset A.Upon receiving a selection of the “remove from playlist” option formedia asset A prior to receiving any selection of the “play” option formedia asset A, the interactive media guidance application determinesthat the interactive media guidance application has received theexpression of disinterest in media asset A from the second user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving a requestto terminate playback of the first media asset before a threshold timehas elapsed from a start time of the playback of the first media asset.The threshold time defines a minimum period of time that the second userwill spend viewing a media asset if the second user does not have adisinterest in the media asset. The threshold time may be a constanttime period (e.g., 10 minutes) or a variable time period determinedbased on the length of a media asset (e.g., 25% of the length of a mediaasset). In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationmay determine the threshold time based on the playlist associatedactivity of the second user. For example, if the interactive mediaguidance application determines that the second user has an unusuallyshort attention span in general, the interactive media guidanceapplication may set the threshold time to a higher value. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure) associated with the userprofile associated with the second user or a separate data structure todetermine the value corresponding to the threshold time. The interactivemedia guidance application may use a Boolean comparison function todetermine whether the time elapsed from a start time of the playback ofthe first media asset exceeds the threshold time. For example, if thethreshold time is 10 minutes and the interactive media guidanceapplication receives a request from the second user to terminateplayback of media asset A after five minutes of playback, theinteractive media guidance application determines that the interactivemedia guidance application has received the expression of disinterest inmedia asset A from the second user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may waita predefined period of time upon receiving a request to terminateplayback of the first media asset before the threshold time has elapsedbefore determining that the request constitutes the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset. The interactive media guidanceapplication may determine a total playback time for the first media atthe end of the predefined period. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may maintain a total playback time data structureand the interactive media guidance application may update the value oftotal playback time of the first media asset in this data structurebased on the current time and playback of the first media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may use a Boolean comparisonfunction to determine whether the total playback time for the firstmedia asset at the end of the predefined period of time is less than thethreshold time. Upon determining that the total playback time for thefirst media asset at the end of the predefined period of time is lessthan the threshold time, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine that the interactive media guidance application has receivedthe expression of disinterest in the first media asset. For example, theinteractive media guidance application may, upon receiving the seconduser request to terminate playback of media asset A after five minutesof playback, may wait for a 24 hour period before determining whetherthe request constitutes an expression of disinterest in media asset A.If, for example, the second user resumes playback of the media asset Afor another 15 minutes during the 24 hour period, the interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the total playback time formedia asset A at the end of the pre-defined time period is 20 minutes.In this case, the interactive media guidance application may determine,because the total playback time for media asset A exceeds the thresholdtime, that the request does not constitute an expression of disinterestin media asset A.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application determining that aproportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted by the seconduser is less than a threshold proportion. The threshold proportiondefines a minimum proportion of a media asset (e.g., 60% of a mediaasset) that the second user will spend viewing uninterrupted if thesecond user does not have a disinterest in the media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure) associated with the userprofile associated with the second user or a separate data structure todetermine the value corresponding to the threshold proportion. Theinteractive media guidance application may use a Boolean comparisonfunction to determine whether the proportion of the first media assetviewed uninterrupted by the second user is less than the thresholdproportion (e.g., “proportion viewed uninterrupted<threshold proportion”Boolean function). In some embodiments, the interactive media guidanceapplication may adapt the value of the threshold proportion based on theplaylist associated activity of the second user (e.g., the threshold maybe set to be 40% if the second user frequently views media assets withinterruptions). Interruptions to viewing may be pausing playback,fast-forwarding, performing other activities simultaneously withplayback of the media asset (e.g., simultaneously playing back anothermedia asset, browsing social media, executing another application) andother suitable interruptions. For example, the threshold proportion maybe 50%. If the second user fast-forwards through 65% of media asset A,the interactive media guidance application determines that theproportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted is 35%. In thiscase, the interactive media guidance application receives a “true” valuefrom the “proportion viewed uninterrupted<threshold proportion” Booleanfunction and the interactive media guidance application determines thatthe interactive media guidance application has received the expressionof disinterest in media asset A from the second user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving afeedback about the first media asset from the second user and theinteractive media guidance application determining that the feedbackcorresponds to a pre-defined expression of disinterest. Feedback aboutthe first media asset may be structured responses (e.g., a score, aresponse to a prompt such as “Did you like the media asset?”),unstructured comments and any other suitable means of communicating thesecond user's level of disinterest in the first media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure) associated with the userprofile associated with the second user or a separate data structure todetermine a pre-defined expression of disinterest. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the feedback corresponds to apre-defined expression of disinterest using a Boolean comparisonfunction.

For example, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay a selectable option “Rate this media asset” corresponding toeach media asset in the playlist. Upon receiving a selection of the“Rate this media asset” option, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate for display selectable options (e.g., letterratings system, numerical rating system, and any other suitable ratingcriteria) for receiving the rating from the second user. For example,the interactive media guidance application may receive a selection ofthe “Rate this media asset” option corresponding to media asset A fromthe second user. In response, the interactive media guidance applicationmay generate for display selectable options A, B, C, D, E and F. Theinteractive media guidance application may receive a selection of theoption C from the second user. The interactive media guidanceapplication may then access a data structure associated with theplaylist (e.g., threshold parameters data structure) to determine avalue corresponding to the pre-defined expression of disinterest. Forexample, the threshold parameters data structure may include C, D, E andF as pre-defined expressions of disinterest. In this case, theinteractive media guidance application receives a “true” result from a“feedback==pre-defined expression of disinterest” Boolean function. Uponreceiving the “true” result, the interactive media guidance applicationmay determine that the interactive media guidance application hasreceived an expression of disinterest in media asset A from the seconduser.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application receivesunstructured feedback such as unstructured text (e.g., response to someequivalent of the prompt “Leave comments”), social media activity (e.g.,posting information about a media asset on social media such as “Watchedmedia asset A. It was very bad.”), audio and/or video feedback and othersuitable unstructured feedback. In these cases, the interactive mediaguidance application may perform additional analytical steps todetermine the level of disinterest expressed by the second user. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application may receive textresponse “This was so boring that I wanted do my homework instead.” tothe “Leave comments” selectable option corresponding to media asset A.The interactive media guidance application may perform semantic analysison the text to determine a level of disinterest expressed in the textresponse. The interactive media guidance application may then determine,based on the level of disinterest that has been pre-defined as anexpression of disinterest in a data structure associated with theplaylist (e.g., threshold parameters data structure) or a separate datastructure, whether the text response constitutes an expression ofdisinterest. For example, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine, based on semantic analysis, that the level of disinterestexpressed in the text response “This was so boring that I wanted do myhomework instead” is 85%. The interactive media guidance application mayaccess the threshold parameters data structure to determine that thelevel of disinterest pre-defined as an expression of disinterest is 50%.In this case, the interactive media guidance application determines thatthe interactive media guidance application has received an expression ofdisinterest in media asset A from the second user.

The interactive media guidance application, based on receiving theexpression of disinterest, updates a user profile associated with thesecond user based on the expression of disinterest in the first mediaasset from the second user. For example, upon receiving the expressionof disinterest in media asset A from Teddy, the interactive mediaguidance application updates Teddy's user profile. In some embodiments,the user profile associated with the second user includes a plurality ofattributes and corresponding weights. Attributes may be descriptorstypically associated with media content such as but not limited to genre(e.g., drama, comedy, animation, science fiction), actor, director,producer, studio (e.g., Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment,NBC Universal) plot, key words, key sequences. For example, Teddy's userprofile may include an attributes data structure that includes theattributes animation, science fiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x andplot y and the corresponding weights. In some embodiments, the weightsare initialized to default values based on the age of the second user.

The interactive media guidance application may determine, for example,that Teddy is 11 years old. The interactive media guidance applicationmay then access a data structure (e.g., default attributes settings datastructure) to determine the default values of weights corresponding tothe attributes included in the attributes data structure in Teddy's userprofile for an 11 year old. The interactive media guidance applicationmay then initialize the values of the weights corresponding to theattributes in the attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile withthe default values of the weights for an 11 year old from the defaultattributes settings data structure. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may determine, by accessing the default attributessettings data structure, that the default values of weightscorresponding to the attributes animation, science fiction, Walt DisneyStudios, plot x and plot y for an 11 year old are 3, 1, 3, 2, and 1respectively. The interactive media guidance application may then setthe values of the weights corresponding to the attributes animation,science fiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x and plot y to 3, 1, 3, 2,and 1 respectively in the attributes data structure in Teddy's userprofile.

In some embodiments, the first media asset has an associated firstplurality of attributes. For example, media asset A has the attributesscience fiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot x. The interactive mediaguidance application may retrieve metadata corresponding to the firstmedia asset by querying a database (e.g., content listings database ofthe content source providing media asset A) for the metadatacorresponding to the first media asset. The interactive media guidanceapplication may perform the query using database management languagessuch as SQL, JAPQL, CODASYL or another suitable language. Theinteractive media guidance application may extract the first pluralityof attributes from the metadata corresponding to the first media assetusing a suitable metadata extraction tool.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application updatesthe user profile associated with the second user based on the expressionof disinterest in the first media asset by decreasing weightscorresponding to the first plurality of attributes in the user profile.For example, the interactive media guidance application may, uponreceiving the expression of disinterest in media asset A, decrease theweights corresponding to science fiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot xin the attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile. From theprevious example, the interactive media guidance application initiallyset the weights corresponding to the attributes science fiction, WaltDisney Studios and plot x to 1, 3 and 2 respectively. After receivingthe expression of disinterest in media asset A, the interactive mediaguidance application may decrease the weights corresponding to sciencefiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot x to 0, 2 and 1 respectively.

In some embodiments, an attribute of the first plurality of attributesassociated with the first media asset may not be included in the userprofile associated with the second user. In such an instance, theinteractive media guidance application may update the user profileassociated with the second user to include the attribute. For example,an attribute associated with media asset A may be actor X. Theinteractive media guidance application may determine (e.g., by using aBoolean query function) that the attribute actor X is not included inthe attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile. The interactivemedia guidance application may then update the attributes data structurein Teddy's user profile to include the attribute actor X.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines whether the number of expressions of disinterest receivedduring a period of time exceeds a threshold number of expressions ofdisinterest during the period of time. The period of time (e.g., onehour) and the threshold number of expressions of disinterest (e.g., fiveexpressions of disinterest) may be some default value or provided by thefirst user. The interactive media guidance application may access a datastructure (e.g., threshold parameters data structure) associated withthe user profile associated with the second user or a separate datastructure to determine the values corresponding to the period of timeand the threshold number of expressions of disinterest. For example, theinteractive media guidance application may maintain a counter of thenumber of expressions of disinterest received during the period of time.The interactive media guidance application may continuously update thevalue of the counter based on the current time and receiving anexpression of disinterest in a media asset. Each time the interactivemedia guidance application receives an expression of disinterest, theinteractive media guidance application may compare the updated value ofthe counter with the threshold number of expressions of disinterestduring the period of time to determine if the value of the counterexceeds the threshold number of expressions of disinterest. For example,the interactive media guidance application may use a Boolean comparisonfunction (e.g., “counter>threshold number” Boolean comparison function)to perform this determination.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may, inresponse to determining that the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during a period of time does not exceed the threshold number,update the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset. Techniques by whichthe interactive media guidance application may update the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset discussed previously are applicable here. Forexample, upon receiving an expression of disinterest in media asset A,the interactive media guidance application may determine that theupdated value of the counter of the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during one hour is 3. In this case, the interactive mediaguidance application receives a “false” result from the“counter>threshold number” Boolean comparison function, and theinteractive media guidance application determines that the counter doesnot exceed the threshold number. The interactive media guidanceapplication may then update Teddy's user profile based on the expressionof disinterest in media asset A.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may, inresponse to determining that the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during a period of time exceeds the threshold number, make nochanges to the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset. For example, uponreceiving an expression of disinterest in media asset A, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine that the updated value of thecounter of the number of expressions of disinterest received during onehour is 6. In this case, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives a “true” result from the “counter>threshold number” Booleancomparison function and the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines that the counter exceeds the threshold number. In thisinstance, the interactive media guidance application may make no changesto Teddy's user profile based on the expression of disinterest in mediaasset A.

The interactive media guidance application determines a recommendationfor a second media asset for inclusion in the playlist for the seconduser based on the updated user profile associated with the second user.The interactive media guidance application may use any suitablerecommendation algorithm to determine a recommendation for a secondmedia asset based on the updated user profile. In some embodiments, theinteractive media guidance application may determine a second pluralityof attributes associated with the second media asset. Manners in whichthe interactive media guidance application may determine attributesassociated with a media asset from the metadata corresponding to themedia asset discussed previously are applicable here. The interactivemedia guidance application may compare the second plurality ofattributes with the plurality of attributes and the correspondingweights in the user profile associated with the second user to determinea similarity coefficient for the second media asset. For example, theinteractive media guidance application may sum the weights correspondingto the second plurality of attributes in the user profile associatedwith the second user to determine the similarity coefficient for thesecond media asset. The interactive media guidance application may thencompare the similarity coefficient for the second media asset to athreshold similarity coefficient using a Boolean comparison function.The interactive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure) associated with the userprofile associated with the second user or a separate data structure todetermine the value corresponding to the threshold similaritycoefficient. In some embodiments, upon determining that the similaritycoefficient for the second media asset exceeds the threshold similaritycoefficient, the interactive media guidance application determines thatthe second media asset should be recommended for inclusion in theplaylist for the second user.

From the previous example, after Teddy's user profile is updated basedon the expression of disinterest in media asset A, the plurality ofattributes in the attributes data structure are animation, sciencefiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x and plot y and the correspondingweights are 3, 0, 2, 1, and 1 respectively. For example, media asset Mhas attributes animation and Walt Disney Studios, and media asset F hasattributes science fiction and plot x. The interactive media guidanceapplication may determine the similarity coefficients for media asset Mand media asset F to be 5 and 1, respectively. The threshold similaritycoefficient may be 2. In this case, the interactive media guidanceapplication may determine, based on the results of a Boolean comparisonfunction, that only media asset M should be recommended for inclusion inthe playlist for Teddy.

The interactive media guidance application, upon determining arecommendation for a second media asset for inclusion in the playlistfor the second user, generates for display, for the first user, therecommendation for the second media asset. From the previous example,the interactive media guidance application, upon determining that mediaasset M should be recommended for inclusion in the playlist for Teddy,generates for display, for Mom, a recommendation to include media assetM in the playlist for Teddy.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives, from the first user, an expression of disinterest in therecommendation for the second media asset. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may receive an expression of disinterest inmedia asset M from Mom (e.g., a request from Mom to remove media asset Mfrom the recommendations). In some embodiments, the interactive mediaguidance application, in response to receiving the expression ofdisinterest in the recommendation for the second media asset, updatesthe user profile associated with the second user based on the expressionof disinterest in the recommendation. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may update Teddy's user profile based on therequest from Mom to remove media asset M from the recommendations.Techniques by which the interactive media guidance application mayupdate the user profile associated with the second user discussedpreviously are applicable here. The interactive media guidanceapplication may determine a recommendation for a third media asset forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user. Manners in which theinteractive media guidance application performs this determinationdiscussed previously are applicable here. The interactive media guidanceapplication may generate for display, for the first user, therecommendation for the third media asset. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine that media asset X should berecommended for inclusion in the playlist for Teddy. The interactivemedia guidance application may then generate for display, for Mom, arecommendation to include media asset X in the playlist for Teddy.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives, from the first user, a selection of a subset of media assetsof the plurality of media assets to be included in the playlist for thesecond user for which the expression of disinterest from the second useris to be disregarded. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate for display a selectable option (e.g., someequivalent of “Disregard expression of disinterest in media asset bysecond user”) corresponding to each media asset identifier to allow thefirst user to select the subset of media assets for which the expressionof disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded. For example,the interactive media guidance application may receive a selection fromMom to include media assets A, B and C in the playlist for Teddy. Theinteractive media guidance application may also receive, from mom, aselection of the selectable option “Disregard expression of disinterestin media asset by second user” corresponding to media asset A. In someembodiments, the interactive media guidance application, upon receivingthe selection of the subset of media assets for the second user forwhich the expression of disinterest from the second user is to bedisregarded, stores the media assets identifiers corresponding to thesubset of media assets in a data structure (e.g., “disregard list”). Forexample, the interactive media guidance application may store the mediaasset identifier for media asset A in the “disregard list” datastructure.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application updatingthe user profile associated with the second user based on the expressionof disinterest in the first media asset further comprises theinteractive media guidance application determining whether the firstmedia asset is included in the subset of media assets for which theexpression of disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application, upon receiving theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset from the second user,may use a Boolean comparison function to compare the media assetidentifier of the first media asset with the media asset identifiersstored in the “disregard list” data structure. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the first media asset isincluded in the subset of media assets for which the expression ofdisinterest from the second user is to be disregarded if the Booleancomparison function returns a “true” result. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the first media asset is notincluded in the subset of media assets for which the expression ofdisinterest from the second user is to be disregarded if the Booleancomparison function returns a “false” result.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application, inresponse to determining that the first media asset is included to thesubset of media assets for which the expression of disinterest from thesecond user is to be disregarded, makes no changes to the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication receives an expression of disinterest in the media asset Afrom Teddy and the interactive media guidance application determinesthat media asset A is included in the “disregard list” data structure.In this instance, the interactive media guidance application makes nochanges to Teddy's user profile based on the expression of disinterestin media asset A. In some embodiments, the interactive media guidanceapplication, in response to determining that the first media asset isnot included in the subset of media assets for which the expression ofdisinterest from the second user is to be disregarded, updates the userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application receives an expression of disinterest in the mediaasset B from the Teddy and the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines that media asset B is not included in the “disregard list”data structure. In this instance, the interactive media guidanceapplication updates Teddy's user profile based on the expression ofdisinterest in media asset B. Techniques by which the interactive mediaguidance application may update Teddy's user profile based on theexpression of disinterest in media asset B discussed previously areapplicable here.

Parents create playlists for their children so that the children canview approved content without continuously interrupting them to requestpermission to view the content. In order to minimize interruptions,parents have to choose content that their children will not object to.Given the plethora of available content and children's rapidly changingtastes, it is virtually impossible for parents to manually track typesof content their children typically object to and, based on thoseobjections, select content that is least likely to be objected to. As aresult, parents invariably include content that their children object toand receive frequent requests from their children for new content. Thiscan be very disruptive to the current activities that parents andchildren are engaging in and a source of frustration for both parties.

Systems and methods provided herein address this issue by monitoringexpressions of disinterest in content received from a child, updatingthe child's user profile based on the expressions of disinterest andproviding a recommendation for other content, determined based on theupdated child's user profile, to the parent. This approach uses a morecomplete set of parameters for determining content to recommend and canconsequently identify content that is least likely to be objected tomore accurately.

Conventional systems may determine recommendations for other contentbased on what the child has watched. Consequently, because they do nottake into account expressions of disinterest in content received from achild, conventional systems are more likely than the proposed inventionto recommend content that will be objected to. For example, the childmay have watched content 1. Based on this, conventional systems mayrecommend content 2. However, content 2 may have attribute A that thechild had previously expressed disinterest in. Because conventionalsystems do not monitor for expressions of disinterest, conventionalsystems would recommend content 2, which would subsequently be objectedto by the child. The proposed invention would determine that content 2should not be recommended based on the previously received expression ofdisinterest and would recommend other content that is less likely to beobjected to.

It should be noted that the systems and/or methods described above maybe applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods and/orapparatuses in this disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative display of the interactive media guidanceapplication in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 depicts another illustrative display of the interactive mediaguidance application in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 4 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing afirst user with recommendations of media assets for inclusion in aplaylist for a second user based on the second user's viewing activityin accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 706 (FIG.7) when receiving, from the second user, the expression of disinterestin the first media asset of the plurality of media assets in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 708 (FIG.7) when updating the user profile associated with the second user basedon the expression of disinterest in the first media asset from thesecond user in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 710 (FIG.7) when determining the recommendation for the second media asset forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As referred to herein, an “interactive media guidance application,” or a“media guidance application” or, sometimes, a “media guidanceapplication” or a “guidance application” is an application that allows auser to consume, and/or navigate to content. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may be provided as an online application(i.e., provided on a website), or as a stand-alone application on aserver, user device. In some embodiments, control circuitry installed onvarious devices and platforms may execute the media guidanceapplication, as described in more detail below. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application and/or any instructions for performing any ofthe embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computer readablemedia. Computer readable media includes any media capable of storingdata. The computer readable media may be transitory, including, but notlimited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals, or may benon-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile and nonvolatilecomputer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk, floppy disk, USBdrive, DVD, CD, media card, register memory, processor caches, RandomAccess Memory (“RAM”).

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative display of the interactive media guidanceapplication in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. FIG.1 depicts an illustrative display 100, which may be displayed on anyuser device (e.g., user television equipment 602, user computerequipment 604, and wireless user communications device 606, described inFIG. 6 below). Control circuitry 504 may cause displays to be displayedon display 512 using the one or more of the processes described in FIGS.7-10.

Display 100 is an example of a display generated by the interactivemedia guidance application to provide the first user with therecommendation for the second media asset based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset from the second user. Display 100may include a variety of displays such as displays 102, 120 and 164.Display 102 is an example of a display generated by the interactivemedia guidance application for receiving from the first user theselection of the plurality of media assets to be included in theplaylist for the second user. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may generate for display a plurality of media assetidentifiers such as “Media Asset A” 104, “Media Asset B” 108, “MediaAsset C” 112 and “Media Asset D” 118 along with a selectable optioncorresponding to each media asset identifier (e.g., selectable option“add to playlist” 106 corresponding “Media Asset A” 104; selectableoption “add to playlist” 110 corresponding “Media Asset B” 108;selectable option “add to playlist” 114 corresponding “Media Asset C”112; selectable option “add to playlist” 118 corresponding “Media AssetD” 116). The interactive media guidance application may receive, fromthe first user (e.g., Mom), a selection to include “Media Asset A” 104,“Media Asset B” 108 and “Media Asset C” 112 in the playlist uponreceiving a selection of the options “add to playlist” 106, “add toplaylist” 110, and “add to playlist” 114 via user input interface 510.

Display 102 is an example of a display generated by the interactivemedia guidance application for displaying the plurality of media assetsin the playlist to the second user. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may generate for display media asset identifiersfor the plurality of media assets selected by the first user (e.g.,“Media Asset A” 122, “Media Asset B” 134 and “Media Asset C” 146). Theinteractive media guidance application may also generate for display oneor more selectable options corresponding to each media asset identifierto allow the second user to perform actions associated with each mediaasset. For example, the interactive media guidance application maygenerate for display selectable options “Play” 124, “Remove fromplaylist” 126, “Rate this media asset” 128, “Like” 130, “Dislike” 132and “leave comments” 158 corresponding to “Media Asset A” 122.Similarly, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay selectable options “Play” 136, “Remove from playlist” 138, “Ratethis media asset” 140, “Like” 142, “Dislike” 144 and “leave comments”160 corresponding to “Media Asset B” 134 and selectable options “Play”148, “Remove from playlist” 150, “Rate this media asset” 152, “Like”154, “Dislike” 156 and “leave comments” 162 corresponding to “MediaAsset C” 146.

The interactive media guidance application receives, from the seconduser, an expression of disinterest in a first media asset of theplurality of media assets. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may receive, from Teddy, an expression of disinterest in“Media asset A” 122. An expression of disinterest in a media asset isany suitable means of communicating that the media asset fails tosatisfy the second user in some aspect.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving a requestfrom the second user to remove the first media asset from the playlistprior to playback of the first media asset. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may receive, via user input interface 510, aselection of the “Remove from playlist” 126 option prior to anyselection of the “Play” 124 option. In this instance, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine that the interactive mediaguidance application has received the expression of disinterest in“Media asset A” 122 from the second user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving a requestto terminate playback of the first media asset before a threshold timehas elapsed from a start time of the playback of the first media asset.The threshold time defines a minimum period of time that the second userwill spend viewing a media asset if the second user does not have adisinterest in the media asset. The threshold time may be a constanttime period (e.g., 10 minutes) or a variable time period determinedbased on the length of a media asset (e.g., 25% of the length of a mediaasset). In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationmay determine the threshold time based on the playlist associatedactivity of the second user. For example, if the interactive mediaguidance application determines that the second user has an unusuallyshort attention span in general, the interactive media guidanceapplication may set the threshold time to a higher value. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure stored locally in storage 508or remotely in media content source 616 and media guidance data source618) associated with the user profile associated with the second user ora separate data structure to determine the value corresponding to thethreshold time. The interactive media guidance application may use aBoolean comparison function to determine whether the time elapsed from astart time of the playback of the first media asset exceeds thethreshold time. For example, if the threshold time is 10 minutes and theinteractive media guidance application receives a request from thesecond user to terminate playback of “Media asset A” 122 after fiveminutes of playback (e.g., selection of a termination option 5 minutesafter a selection of “Play” 124 option), the interactive media guidanceapplication determines that the interactive media guidance applicationhas received the expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122 fromthe second user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may waita predefined period of time upon receiving a request to terminateplayback of the first media asset before the threshold time has elapsedbefore determining that the request constitutes the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset. The interactive media guidanceapplication may determine a total playback time for the first media atthe end of the predefined period. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may maintain a total playback time data structureand the interactive media guidance application may update the value oftotal playback time of the first media asset in this data structurebased on the current time and playback of the first media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may use a Boolean comparisonfunction to determine whether the total playback time for the firstmedia asset at the end of the predefined period of time is less than thethreshold time. Upon determining that the total playback time for thefirst media asset at the end of the predefined period of time is lessthan the threshold time, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine that the interactive media guidance application has receivedthe expression of disinterest in the first media asset. For example, theinteractive media guidance application may, upon receiving the seconduser request to terminate playback of “Media asset A” 122 after fiveminutes of playback, may wait for a 24 hour period before determiningwhether the request constitutes an expression of disinterest in mediaasset A. If, for example, the second user resumes playback of the “Mediaasset A” 122 for another 15 minutes during the 24 hour period, theinteractive media guidance application may determine that the totalplayback time for “Media asset A” 122 at the end of the pre-defined timeperiod is 20 minutes. In this case, the interactive media guidanceapplication may determine, because the total playback time for “Mediaasset A” 122 exceeds the threshold time, the request does not constitutean expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application determining that aproportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted by the seconduser is less than a threshold proportion. The threshold proportiondefines a minimum proportion of a media asset (e.g., 60% of a mediaasset) that the second user will spend viewing uninterrupted if thesecond user does not have a disinterest in the media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure stored locally in storage 508or remotely in media content source 616 and media guidance data source618) associated with the user profile associated with the second user ora separate data structure to determine the value corresponding to thethreshold proportion. The interactive media guidance application may usea Boolean comparison function to determine whether the proportion of thefirst media asset viewed uninterrupted by the second user is less thanthe threshold proportion (e.g., “proportion vieweduninterrupted<threshold proportion” Boolean function). In someembodiments, the interactive media guidance application may adapt thevalue of the threshold proportion based on the playlist associatedactivity of the second user (e.g., the threshold may be set to be 40% ifthe second user frequently views media assets with interruptions).Interruptions to viewing may be pausing playback, fast-forwarding,performing other activities simultaneously with playback of the mediaasset (e.g., simultaneously playing back another media asset, browsingsocial media, executing another application) and other suitableinterruptions. For example, the threshold proportion may be 50%. If thesecond user fast-forwards through 65% of “Media asset A” 122, theinteractive media guidance application determines that the proportion ofthe first media asset viewed uninterrupted is 35%. In this case, theinteractive media guidance application receives a “true” value from the“proportion viewed uninterrupted<threshold proportion” Booleancomparison function and the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines that the interactive media guidance application has receivedthe expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122 from the seconduser.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the interactive media guidance application receiving afeedback about the first media asset from the second user and theinteractive media guidance application determining that the feedbackcorresponds to a pre-defined expression of disinterest. Feedback aboutthe first media asset may be structured responses (e.g., a score, aresponse to a prompt such as “Did you like the media asset?”),unstructured comments and any other suitable means of communicating thesecond user's level of disinterest in the first media asset. Theinteractive media guidance application may access a data structure(e.g., threshold parameters data structure stored locally in storage 508or remotely in media content source 616 and media guidance data source618) associated with the user profile associated with the second user ora separate data structure to determine a pre-defined expression ofdisinterest. The interactive media guidance application may determinethat the feedback corresponds to a pre-defined expression of disinterestusing a Boolean comparison function.

For example, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay selectable options “Rate this media asset” 128, “Rate this mediaasset” 140 and “Rate this media asset” 152 to allow the second user torate “Media Asset A” 122, “Media Asset A” 134 and “Media Asset A” 146,respectively. Upon receiving a selection of any of 128, 140 and 152, theinteractive media guidance application may generate for displayselectable options (e.g., letter ratings system, numerical ratingsystem, and any other suitable rating criteria) for receiving the ratingfrom the second user. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may receive a selection of the “Rate this media asset” 128″option corresponding to “Media asset A” 122 from the second user. Inresponse, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay selectable options A, B, C, D, E and F. The interactive mediaguidance application may receive a selection of the option C from thesecond user. The interactive media guidance application may then accessa data structure associated with the playlist (e.g., thresholdparameters data structure stored locally in storage 508 or remotely inmedia content source 616 and media guidance data source 618) todetermine a value corresponding to the pre-defined expression ofdisinterest. For example, the threshold parameters data structure mayinclude C, D, E and F as pre-defined expressions of disinterest. In thiscase, the interactive media guidance application receives a “true”result from a “feedback==pre-defined expression of disinterest” Booleanfunction. Upon receiving the “true” result, the interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the interactive media guidanceapplication has received an expression of disinterest in “Media asset A”122 from the second user. Similarly, the interactive media guidanceapplication may determine that the interactive media guidanceapplication has received an expression of disinterest in “Media asset A”122 from the second user upon receiving a selection of the “Dislike” 132option.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application receivesunstructured feedback such as unstructured text (e.g., response to someequivalent of the prompt “Leave comments”), social media activity (e.g.,posting information about a media asset on social media such as “Watchedmedia asset A. It was very bad.”), audio and/or video feedback and othersuitable unstructured feedback. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may receive a selection of the “Leave comments” 158option. In response, the interactive media guidance application mayprovide the user an option to input text comments via user inputinterface 510. In such cases, the interactive media guidance applicationmay perform additional analytical steps to determine the level ofdisinterest expressed by the second user. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may receive text response “This was so boringthat I wanted do my homework instead.” to the “Leave comments” 158selectable option corresponding to “Media asset A” 122. The interactivemedia guidance application may perform semantic analysis on the text todetermine a level of disinterest expressed in the text response. Theinteractive media guidance application may then determine, based on thelevel of disinterest that has been pre-defined as an expression ofdisinterest in a data structure associated with the playlist (e.g.,threshold parameters data structure stored locally in storage 508 orremotely in media content source 616 and media guidance data source 618)or a separate data structure, whether the text response constitutes anexpression of disinterest. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may determine, based on semantic analysis, that the level ofdisinterest expressed in the text response “This was so boring that Iwanted do my homework instead” is 85%. The interactive media guidanceapplication may access the threshold parameters data structure todetermine that the level of disinterest pre-defined as an expression ofdisinterest is 50%. In this case, the interactive media guidanceapplication determines that the interactive media guidance applicationhas received an expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122 fromthe second user.

The interactive media guidance application, based on receiving theexpression of disinterest, updates a user profile associated with thesecond user based on the expression of disinterest in the first mediaasset from the second user. For example, upon receiving the expressionof disinterest in media asset A from Teddy, the interactive mediaguidance application updates Teddy's user profile. In some embodiments,the user profile associated with the second user includes a plurality ofattributes and corresponding weights. Attributes may be descriptorstypically associated with media content such as but not limited to genre(e.g., drama, comedy, animation, science fiction), actor, director,producer, studio (e.g., Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment,NBC Universal) plot, key words, key sequences. For example, Teddy's userprofile may include an attributes data structure that includes theattributes animation, science fiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x andplot y and the corresponding weights. In some embodiments, the weightsare initialized to default values based on the age of the second user.

The interactive media guidance application may determine, for example,that Teddy is 11 years old. The interactive media guidance applicationmay then access a data structure (e.g., default attributes settings datastructure stored locally in storage 508 or remotely in media contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618) to determine the defaultvalues of weights corresponding to the attributes included in theattributes data structure in Teddy's user profile for an 11 year old.The interactive media guidance application may then initialize thevalues of the weights corresponding to the attributes in the attributesdata structure in Teddy's user profile with the default values of theweights for an 11 year old from the default attributes settings datastructure. For example, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine, by accessing the default attributes settings data structure,that the default values of weights corresponding to the attributesanimation, science fiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x and plot y foran 11 year old are 3, 1, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. The interactive mediaguidance application may then set the values of the weightscorresponding to the attributes animation, science fiction, Walt DisneyStudios, plot x and plot y to 3, 1, 3, 2, and 1, respectively, in theattributes data structure in Teddy's user profile.

In some embodiments, the first media asset has an associated firstplurality of attributes. For example, “Media asset A” 122 has theattributes science fiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot x. Theinteractive media guidance application may retrieve metadatacorresponding to the first media asset by querying a database (e.g.,content listings database of the content source providing media asset Alocated at media content source 616 and media guidance data source 618)for the metadata corresponding to the first media asset. The interactivemedia guidance application may perform the query using databasemanagement languages such as SQL, JAPQL, CODASYL or another suitablelanguage. The interactive media guidance application may extract thefirst plurality of attributes from the metadata corresponding to thefirst media asset using a suitable metadata extraction tool.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application updatesthe user profile associated with the second user based on the expressionof disinterest in the first media asset by decreasing weightscorresponding to the first plurality of attributes in the user profile.For example, the interactive media guidance application may, uponreceiving the expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122, decreasethe weights corresponding to science fiction, Walt Disney Studios andplot x in the attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile. Fromthe previous example, the interactive media guidance applicationinitially set the weights corresponding to the attributes sciencefiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot x to 1, 3 and 2 respectively.After receiving the expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122,the interactive media guidance application may decrease the weightscorresponding to science fiction, Walt Disney Studios and plot x to 0, 2and 1 respectively.

In some embodiments, an attribute of the first plurality of attributesassociated with the first media asset may not be included in the userprofile associated with the second user. In such an instance, theinteractive media guidance application may update the user profileassociated with the second user to include the attribute. For example,an attribute associated with “Media asset A” 122 may be actor X. Theinteractive media guidance application may determine (e.g., by using aBoolean query function) that the attribute actor X is not included inthe attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile. The interactivemedia guidance application may then the update the attributes datastructure in Teddy's user profile to include the attribute actor X.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines whether number of expressions of disinterest received duringa period of time exceeds a threshold number of expressions ofdisinterest during the period of time. The period of time (e.g., onehour) and the threshold number of expressions of disinterest (e.g., fiveexpressions of disinterest) may be some default value or provided by thefirst user. The interactive media guidance application may access a datastructure (e.g., threshold parameters data structure stored locally instorage 508 or remotely in media content source 616 and media guidancedata source 618) associated with the user profile associated with thesecond user or a separate data structure to determine the valuescorresponding to the period of time and the threshold the number ofexpressions of disinterest. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may maintain a counter of the number of expressions ofdisinterest received during the period of time. The interactive mediaguidance application may continuously update the value of the counterbased on the current time and receiving an expression of disinterest ina media asset. Each time the interactive media guidance applicationreceives an expression of disinterest, the interactive media guidanceapplication may compare the updated value of the counter with thethreshold number of expressions of disinterest during the period of timeto determine if the value of the counter exceeds the threshold number ofexpressions of disinterest. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may use a Boolean comparison function (e.g.,“counter>threshold number” Boolean comparison function) to perform thisdetermination.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may, inresponse to determining that the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during a period of time does not exceed the threshold number,update the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset. Techniques by whichthe interactive media guidance application may update the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset discussed previously are applicable here. Forexample, upon receiving an expression of disinterest in “Media asset A”122, the interactive media guidance application may determine that theupdated value of the counter of the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during one hour is 3. In this case, the interactive mediaguidance application receives a “false” result from the“counter>threshold number” Boolean comparison function and theinteractive media guidance application determines that the counter doesnot exceed the threshold number. The interactive media guidanceapplication may then update Teddy' s user profile based on theexpression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application may, inresponse to determining that the number of expressions of disinterestreceived during a period of time exceeds the threshold number, make nochanges to the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset. For example, uponreceiving an expression of disinterest in media asset A, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine that the updated value of thecounter of the number of expressions of disinterest received during onehour is 6. In this case, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives a “true” result from the “counter>threshold number” Booleancomparison function and the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines that the counter exceeds the threshold number. In thisinstance, the interactive media guidance application may make no changesto Teddy's user profile based on the expression of disinterest in “Mediaasset A” 122.

The interactive media guidance application determines a recommendationfor a second media asset for inclusion in the playlist for the seconduser based on the updated user profile associated with the second user.The interactive media guidance application may use any suitablerecommendation algorithm to determine a recommendation for a secondmedia asset based on the updated user profile. In some embodiments, theinteractive media guidance application may determine a second pluralityof attributes associated with the second media asset. Techniques bywhich the interactive media guidance application may determineattributes associated with a media asset from the metadata correspondingto the media asset discussed previously are applicable here.

The interactive media guidance application may compare the secondplurality of attributes with the plurality of attributes and thecorresponding weights in the user profile associated with the seconduser to determine a similarity coefficient for the second media asset.For example, the interactive media guidance application may sum theweights corresponding to the second plurality of attributes in the userprofile associated with the second user to determine the similaritycoefficient for the second media asset. The interactive media guidanceapplication may then compare the similarity coefficient for the secondmedia asset to a threshold similarity coefficient using a Booleancomparison function. The interactive media guidance application mayaccess a data structure (e.g., threshold parameters data structurestored locally in storage 508 or remotely in media content source 616and media guidance data source 618) associated with the user profileassociated with the second user or a separate data structure todetermine the value corresponding to the threshold similaritycoefficient. In some embodiments, upon determining that the similaritycoefficient for the second media asset exceeds the threshold similaritycoefficient, the interactive media guidance application determines thatthe second media asset should be recommended for inclusion in theplaylist for the second user.

From the previous example, after Teddy's user profile is updated basedon the expression of disinterest in “Media Asset A” 122, the pluralityof attributes in the attributes data structure are animation, sciencefiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x and plot y and the correspondingweights are 3, 0, 2, 1, and 1 respectively. For example, “Media asset M”166 has attributes animation and Walt Disney Studios, and media asset Fhas attributes science fiction and plot x. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine the similarity coefficients for“Media asset M” 166 and media asset F to be 5 and 1 respectively. Thethreshold similarity coefficient may be 2. In this case, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine, based on results of a Booleancomparison function, that only “Media asset M” 166 should be recommendedfor inclusion in the playlist for Teddy.

Display 164 is an example of display that the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate for display for the first user upon determininga recommendation for a second media asset for inclusion in the playlistfor the second user. Display 164 includes a media asset identifier forthe second media asset “Media asset M” 166 and selectable option “Add toPlaylist” 168 to allow the first user to include “Media asset M” 166 inthe playlist for the second user.

FIG. 2 depicts another illustrative display of the interactive mediaguidance application in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative display 200 that may bedisplayed on any user device (e.g., user television equipment 602, usercomputer equipment 604, and wireless user communications device 606,described in FIG. 6 below). Control circuitry 504 may cause displays tobe displayed on display 512 using the one or more of the processesdescribed in FIGS. 7-10.

Display 200 is an example of a display generated by the interactivemedia guidance application for the first user. Display 200 may include avariety of displays such as displays 202 and 234. Display 202 is anexample of additional selectable options that the interactive mediaguidance application may provide the first user that will affect thedetermination of the recommendation for the second media asset. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application may generate fordisplay a plurality of media asset identifiers such as “Media Asset A”204, “Media Asset B” 210, “Media Asset C” 216 and “Media Asset D” 222along with selectable options corresponding to each media assetidentifier (e.g., selectable options “Add to playlist” 206 and“Disregard expression of disinterest in media asset by second user” 208corresponding “Media Asset A” 204; selectable option “Add to playlist”212 and “Disregard expression of disinterest in media asset by seconduser” 214 corresponding “Media Asset B” 210; selectable option “Add toplaylist” 218 and “Disregard expression of disinterest in media asset bysecond user” 220 corresponding “Media Asset C” 216; selectable option“add to playlist” 224 and “Disregard expression of disinterest in mediaasset by second user” 226 corresponding “Media Asset D” 222). Selectableoptions 208, 214, 220 and 226 allow the first user to indicate mediaassets to be included in the playlist for the second user for which theexpression of disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded.Display 202 may include the media asset identifier “Media asset M” 228for the second media asset recommended for inclusion in the playlistalong with corresponding selectable options. In addition to selectableoption “Add to playlist” 230, the interactive media guidance applicationmay provide selectable option “Remove from recommendations” 232 to allowthe first user to indicate an expression of disinterest in therecommendation for the second media asset.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives, from the first user, a selection of a subset of media assetsof the plurality of media assets to be included in the playlist for thesecond user for which the expression of disinterest from the second useris to be disregarded. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication may, upon receiving a selection of “Add to playlist” 206,“Add to playlist” 212 and “Add to playlist” 218 via user input interface510, receive a selection from Mom to include media assets A, B and C inthe playlist for Teddy. The interactive media guidance application mayalso receive, from mom, a selection of “Disregard expression ofdisinterest in media asset by second user” 208. In some embodiments, theinteractive media guidance application, upon receiving the selection ofthe subset of media assets for the second user for which the expressionof disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded, store themedia assets identifiers corresponding to the subset of media assets ina data structure (e.g., “disregard list” stored locally in storage 508or remotely in media content source 616 and media guidance data source618). For example, the interactive media guidance application may storethe media asset identifier for “Media asset A” 204 in the “disregardlist” data structure.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application updatingthe user profile associated with the second user based on the expressionof disinterest in the first media asset further comprises theinteractive media guidance application determining whether the firstmedia asset is included in the subset of media assets for which theexpression of disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application, upon receiving theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset from the second user,may use a Boolean comparison function to compare the media assetidentifier of the first media asset with the media asset identifiersstored in the “disregard list” data structure. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the first media asset isincluded in the subset of media assets for which the expression ofdisinterest from the second user is to be disregarded if the Booleancomparison function returns a “true” result. The interactive mediaguidance application may determine that the first media asset is notincluded in the subset of media assets for which the expression ofdisinterest from the second user is to be disregarded if the Booleancomparison function returns a “false” result.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application, inresponse to determining that the first media asset is included in thesubset of media assets for which the expression of disinterest from thesecond user is to be disregarded, makes no changes to the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset. For example, the interactive media guidanceapplication receives an expression of disinterest in the “Media asset A”204 from the Teddy and the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines that “Media asset A” 204 is included in the “disregard list”data structure. In this instance, the interactive media guidanceapplication makes no changes to Teddy's user profile based on theexpression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 204. In some embodiments,the interactive media guidance application, in response to determiningthat the first media asset is not included in the subset of media assetsfor which the expression of disinterest from the second user is to bedisregarded, updates the user profile associated with the second userbased on the expression of disinterest in the first media asset. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application receives anexpression of disinterest in the “Media asset B” 210 from Teddy, and theinteractive media guidance application determines that “Media asset B”210 is not included in the “disregard list” data structure. In thisinstance, the interactive media guidance application updates Teddy' suser profile based on the expression of disinterest in media asset B.Techniques by which the interactive media guidance application mayupdate Teddy's user profile based on the expression of disinterest in“Media asset B” 210 discussed previously are applicable here.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationreceives, from the first user, an expression of disinterest in therecommendation for the second media asset. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may receive an expression of disinterest in“Media asset M” 228 from Mom upon receiving a selection of the “Removefrom playlist” 232 option via user input interface 510. In someembodiments, the interactive media guidance application, in response toreceiving the expression of disinterest in the recommendation for thesecond media asset, updates the user profile associated with the seconduser based on the expression of disinterest in the recommendation. Forexample, the interactive media guidance application may update Teddy'suser profile based on the request from Mom to remove “Media asset M” 232from the recommendations. Techniques by which the interactive mediaguidance application may update the user profile associated with thesecond user based discussed previously are applicable here. Theinteractive media guidance application may determine a recommendationfor a third media asset for inclusion in the playlist for the seconduser based on the updated user profile associated with the second user.Manner in which the interactive media guidance application performs thisdetermination discussed previously are applicable here. The interactivemedia guidance application may generate for display, for the first user,the recommendation for the third media asset. Display 234 is an exampleof display that the interactive media guidance application may generatefor recommending the third media asset. For example, upon determiningthat media asset X should be recommended for inclusion the playlist forTeddy, the interactive media guidance application may include mediaasset identifier “Media asset X” 236 along with selectable options “Addto playlist” 238 and “Remove from Recommendations” 240 in display 234.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, socialmedia, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 3-4 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 3-4 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 3-4 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 3 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 300arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 300 may include grid 302 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 304, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 306, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 302 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 308, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listingsassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 310. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 310 may be provided inprogram information region 312. Region 312 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 302 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 314, recorded content listing 316, andInternet content listing 318. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 300 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings314, 316, and 318 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 302 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 302. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 320. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 320.)

Display 300 may also include video region 322, advertisement 324, andoptions region 326. Video region 322 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 322 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 302. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 324 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming), is currently available for viewing, will be available forviewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, andmay correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listingsin grid 302. Advertisement 324 may also be for products or servicesrelated or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 302. Advertisement324 may be selectable and provide further information about content,provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing ofcontent, a product, or a service, provide content relating to theadvertisement, etc. Advertisement 324 may be targeted based on a user'sprofile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of displayprovided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.

While advertisement 324 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 324 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid302. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 326 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 326 may be part of display 300 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 326 may concern features related to program listings in grid 302or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 6. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 4. Video mosaic display 400 includes selectable options 402 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 400, television listings option 404 isselected, thus providing listings 406, 408, 410, and 412 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 400 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 408 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 414 and text portion 416.Media portion 414 and/or text portion 416 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 414 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 400 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 406 islarger than listings 408, 410, and 412), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 5 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 500. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 6.User equipment device 500 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 502. I/O path 502 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 504, which includesprocessing circuitry 506 and storage 508. Control circuitry 504 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 502. I/O path 502 may connect control circuitry 504 (andspecifically processing circuitry 506) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 504 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 506. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 508). Specifically, control circuitry 504 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 504 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 504 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 504 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 6). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 508 thatis part of control circuitry 504. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 508 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 6, may be used to supplementstorage 508 or instead of storage 508.

Control circuitry 504 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 504 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 500. Circuitry 504 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 508 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 500, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 508.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 504 using user inputinterface 510. User input interface 510 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 512 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500. For example, display 512 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 510may be integrated with or combined with display 512. Display 512 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 512 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 512 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 512.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry504. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 504.Speakers 514 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 512 may be played throughspeakers 514. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers514.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 500. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage508), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 504 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 508 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 504 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 510. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 510 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 500 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 500. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 504 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 504) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 500. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 500.Equipment device 500 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 510 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 500 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 510.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 500 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 504). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 504 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 504. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 504. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 500 of FIG. 5 can be implemented in system 600 ofFIG. 6 as user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604,wireless user communications device 606, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 5 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, or awireless user communications device 606. For example, user televisionequipment 602 may, like some user computer equipment 604, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 604 may, like some user television equipment 602,include a tuner allowing for access to television programming The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 604, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 606.

In system 600, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 6 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 602, user computer equipment 604, wireless user communicationsdevice 606) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 614.Namely, user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, andwireless user communications device 606 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 614 via communications paths 608, 610, and 612, respectively.

Communications network 614 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 608, 610, and 612 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 612 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 6 it is awireless path and paths 608 and 610 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 608, 610, and 612, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 614.

System 600 includes content source 616 and media guidance data source618 coupled to communications network 614 via communication paths 620and 622, respectively. Paths 620 and 622 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 608, 610,and 612. Communications with the content source 616 and media guidancedata source 618 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 616 and 618 withuser equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 are shown as throughcommunications network 614, in some embodiments, sources 616 and 618 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 608, 610, and 612.

Content source 616 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 616 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 616 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 616 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 618 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 618may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 618 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 618 mayprovide user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions and advertisements thatentice the user to keep the particular service or source indicated bythe score as one to which the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 508, and executedby control circuitry 504 of a user equipment device 500. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 504 of user equipment device 500and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 618) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 618), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 618 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices602, 604, and 606 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 600 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 6.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 614.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 616 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 602 and user computer equipment 604may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 606 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 614. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 616 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 618. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, and wirelessuser communications device 606. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 604 or wireless usercommunications device 606 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 604. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 614. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 5.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing afirst user with recommendations of media assets for inclusion in aplaylist for a second user based on the second user's viewing activityin accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should benoted that process 700 or any step thereof could be performed on, orprovided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example, process700 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) as instructed bythe interactive media guidance application implemented on user equipment602, 604, and/or 606 (FIG. 6). In addition, one or more steps of process700 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of anyother process or embodiment.

Process 700 begins at 702, where control circuitry 504 receives, fromthe first user, a selection of a plurality of media assets to beincluded in the playlist for the second user. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may receive from Mom a selection to include “Media AssetA” 104, “Media Asset B” 108 and “Media Asset C” 112 in the playlist uponreceiving a selection of the options “add to playlist” 106, “add toplaylist” 110, “add to playlist” 114 via user input interface 510.Process 700 continues to 704, where control circuitry 504 generates fordisplay, for the second user, the plurality of media assets in theplaylist. For example, the control circuitry 504 may generate fordisplay media asset identifiers for the plurality of media assetsselected by the first user (e.g., “Media Asset A” 122, “Media Asset B”134 and “Media Asset C” 146) along with corresponding selectableoptions.

Process 700 continues to 706, where control circuitry 504 receives, fromthe second user, an expression of disinterest in a first media asset ofthe plurality of media assets. For example, control circuitry 504 mayreceive, from Teddy, an expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122upon receiving a selection of “Remove from playlist” 126 option prior toreceiving any selection of “Play” 124 option. Process 700 continues to708, where control circuitry 504, based on receiving the expression ofdisinterest, updates a user profile associated with the second userbased on the expression of disinterest in the first media asset from thesecond user. For example, control circuitry 504 may update Teddy's userprofile (stored locally in storage 508 or remotely in media contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618) based on the request toremove “Media asset A” 122 from the playlist. Techniques by whichcontrol circuitry 504 may perform this update discussed previously areapplicable here.

Process 700 continues to 710 where control circuitry 504 determineswhether there is a second media asset that should be recommended forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user. Techniques by which controlcircuitry 504 may perform this determination discussed previously areapplicable here. If, at 710, control circuitry 504 determines that thereis a second media asset that should be recommended for inclusion in theplaylist for the second user based on the updated user profileassociated with the second user, process 700 continues to 712. At 712,control circuitry 504 generates for display, for the first user, therecommendation for the second media asset. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may determine that media asset M should be recommended toMom for inclusion in the playlist for Teddy. In this case, controlcircuitry 504 may generate for display display 164, which includes mediaasset identifier for the second media asset “Media asset M” 166 andselectable option “Add to Playlist” 168 to allow Mom to include “Mediaasset M” 166 in the playlist for Teddy. If, at 710, control circuitry504 determines that there isn't a second media asset that should berecommended for inclusion in the playlist for the second user based onthe updated user profile associated with the second user, process 700continues to 714. At 714, process 700 terminates.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 7 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 7 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 706 (FIG.7) when receiving, from the second user, the expression of disinterestin the first media asset of the plurality of media assets in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process800 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any ofthe devices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example, process 700 may be executedby control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) as instructed by the interactive mediaguidance application implemented on user equipment 602, 604, and/or 606(FIG. 6). In addition, one or more steps of process 700 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment.

Process 800 begins at 802, where control circuitry 504 begins theprocess for receiving, from the second user, the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset of the plurality of media assets.Process 800 continues to 804 where control circuitry 504 determineswhether, prior to playback of the first media asset, a request to removethe first media asset from the playlist has been received from thesecond user. For example, control circuitry 504 determines whether aselection of “Remove from playlist” 126 options has been received priorto any selection of “Play” 124 option. If, at 804, control circuitry 504determines that, prior to playback of the first media asset, a requestto remove the first media asset from the playlist has been received fromthe second user, process 800 continues to 806. At 806, control circuitry504 updates the user profile associated with the second user based onthe expression of disinterest in the first media asset from the seconduser. For example, control circuitry 504 updates Teddy's user profilebased on the expression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122.

If, at 804, control circuitry 504 determines that, prior to playback ofthe first media asset, a request to remove the first media asset fromthe playlist has not been received from the second user, process 800continues to 808. At 808, control circuitry 504 determines whether arequest to terminate playback of the first media asset has beenreceived. If, at 808, control circuitry 504 determines that a request toterminate playback of the first media asset has been received, process800 continues to 810. At 810, control circuitry 504 determines whetherthe time elapsed from a start time of the playback of the first mediaasset is less than a threshold time. For example, control circuitry 504may access a data structure (e.g., threshold parameters data structurestored locally in storage 508 or remotely in media content source 616and media guidance data source 618) associated with Teddy's user profileor a separate data structure to determine the value of the thresholdtime. Techniques by which control circuitry 504 may perform thedetermination discussed previously are applicable here.

If, at 810, control circuitry 504 determines that the time elapsed froma start time of the playback of the first media asset is less than athreshold time, process 800 reverts to 806 where control circuitry 504updates the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset from the second user.For example, control circuitry 504 receives, from Teddy, a selection ofa termination option five minutes after a selection of “Play” 124option. If the threshold time is ten minutes, control circuitry 504determines that it has received the expression of disinterest in “Mediaasset A” 122 from Teddy. If, at 810, control circuitry 504 determinesthat the time elapsed from a start time of the playback of the firstmedia asset is not less than a threshold time, process 800 continues to812. Similarly if, at 808, control circuitry 504 determines that arequest to terminate playback of the first media asset has not beenreceived, process 800 continues to 812.

At 812, control circuitry 504 determines whether a proportion of thefirst media asset viewed uninterrupted by the second user is less than athreshold proportion. If, at 812, control circuitry 504 determines thatthe proportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted by thesecond user is less than the threshold proportion, process 800 revertsto 806. For example, the threshold proportion may be 50%. If Teddyfast-forwards through 65% of “Media asset A” 122, control circuitry 504determines that the proportion of “Media asset A” 122 vieweduninterrupted is 35%. In this case, control circuitry 504 determinesthat the interactive media guidance application has received theexpression of disinterest in “Media asset A” 122 from Teddy. At 806,control circuitry 504 updates the user profile associated with thesecond user based on the expression of disinterest in the first mediaasset from the second user. In this case, control circuitry 504 updatesTeddy's user profile based on the expression of disinterest in “Mediaasset A” 122. If, at 812, control circuitry 504 determines that theproportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted by the seconduser is not less than the threshold proportion, process 800 continues to814.

At 814, control circuitry 504 determines whether a feedback about thefirst media asset been received from the second user. For example,control circuitry 504 determines whether a selection of any of “Ratethis media asset” 128, “Dislike” 132 and “Leave comments” 158 has beenreceived. If, at 814, control circuitry 504 determines that a feedbackabout the first media asset has been received from the second user,process 800 continues to 816. For example, control circuitry 504receives a selection of “Dislike” 132 option. At 816, control circuitry504 determines whether the feedback corresponds to a pre-definedexpression of disinterest. For example, control circuitry 504 accesses adata structure (e.g., threshold parameters data structure stored locallyin storage 508 or remotely in media content source 616 and mediaguidance data source 618) associated with Teddy's user profile or aseparate data structure to determine whether selection of “Dislike” 132option is a pre-defined expression of disinterest. Techniques by whichcontrol circuitry 504 may perform this determination describedpreviously are applicable here. If, at 816, control circuitry 504determines that the feedback corresponds to a pre-defined expression ofdisinterest, process 800 reverts to 806. At 806, control circuitry 504updates the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset from the second user.If, at 816, control circuitry 504 determines that the feedback does notcorrespond to a pre-defined expression of disinterest, process 800continues to 818. Similarly if, at 814, control circuitry 504 determinesthat a feedback about the first media asset has not been received fromthe second user, process 800 continues to 818. At 818, process 800terminates.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 8 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 708 (FIG.7) when updating the user profile associated with the second user basedon the expression of disinterest in the first media asset from thesecond user in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Itshould be noted that process 900 or any step thereof could be performedon, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example,process 900 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) asinstructed by the interactive media guidance application implemented onuser equipment 602, 604, and/or 606 (FIG. 6). In addition, one or moresteps of process 700 may be incorporated into or combined with one ormore steps of any other process or embodiment.

Process 900 begins at 902, where control circuitry 504 begins processfor, based on receiving the expression of disinterest, updating the userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset from the second user. Process 900continues to 904 where control circuitry 504 parses metadata associatedwith the first media asset to determine a first plurality of attributes.For example, control circuitry 504 retrieves metadata corresponding tothe first media asset by querying a database (e.g., a content listingsdatabase of the content source providing media asset A located at mediacontent source 616 and media guidance data source 618) for the metadatacorresponding to “Media asset A” 122. Control circuitry 504 may parsethe metadata associated with “Media asset A” 122 to determine that“Media asset A” 122 has the attributes science fiction, Walt DisneyStudios and plot x. Process 900 continues to 906 where control circuitry504 accesses a data structure associated with the user profileassociated with the second user that includes a second plurality ofattributes and weights corresponding to the second plurality ofattributes. For example, control circuitry 504 accesses an attributesdata structure in Teddy's user profile, which includes the attributesanimation, science fiction, Walt Disney Studios, plot x and plot y withcorresponding weights of 3, 1, 3, 2, and 1.

Process 900 continues to 908 where control circuitry 504 selects anattribute of the first plurality of attributes. For example, controlcircuitry 504 selects science fiction. Process 900 continues to 910where control circuitry 504 determines whether the attribute of thefirst plurality of attributes is included in the second plurality ofattributes. If, at 910, control circuitry 504 determines that theattribute of the first plurality of attributes is included in the secondplurality of attributes, process 900 continues to 912. At 912, controlcircuitry 504 decreases the weight corresponding to the attribute in thedata structure associated with the user profile associated with thesecond user. For example, control circuitry 504 decreases the weightcorresponding to science fiction in the attributes data structure to 0.Process 900 continues to 916 where control circuitry 504 determines ifall attributes of the first plurality of attributes have been selected.For example, control circuitry 504 determines whether all threeattributes of “Media asset A” 122 (i.e., science fiction, Walt DisneyStudios and plot x) have been selected.

If, at 916, control circuitry 504 determines that all attributes of thefirst plurality of attributes have not been selected, process 900reverts to 908. At 908, control circuitry 504 selects an attribute ofthe first plurality of attributes. If, at 916, control circuitry 504determines that all attributes of the first plurality of attributes havebeen selected, process 900 continues to 918. At 918, process 900terminates. If, at 910, control circuitry 504 determines that theattribute of the first plurality of attributes is not included in thesecond plurality of attributes, process 900 continues to 914.

At 914, control circuitry 504 updates the second plurality of attributesto include the attribute and assign a weight corresponding to theattribute in the data structure associated with the user profileassociated with the second user. Process 900 continues to 916 wherecontrol circuitry 504 determines if all attributes of the firstplurality of attributes have been selected. If, at 916, controlcircuitry 504 determines that all attributes of the first plurality ofattributes have not been selected, process 900 reverts to 908. At 908,control circuitry 504 selects an attribute of the first plurality ofattributes. If, at 916, control circuitry 504 determines that allattributes of the first plurality of attributes have been selected,process 900 continues to 918. At 918, process 900 terminates.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 9 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in step 710 (FIG.7) when determining the recommendation for the second media asset forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 1000 orany step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example, process 1000 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) as instructed by the interactive mediaguidance application implemented on user equipment 602, 604, and/or 606(FIG. 6). In addition, one or more steps of process 700 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment.

Process 1000 begins at 1002, where control circuitry 504 begins processfor determining the recommendation for the second media asset forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user. Process 1000 continues to 1004where control circuitry 504 queries a database containing a list ofavailable media assets for media assets. For example, control circuitry504 may query a content listings database located at media contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618 for media assets suitablefor the age of the second user. Process 1000 continues to 1006 wherecontrol circuitry 504 determines whether the query returned a list ofmedia assets. If, at 1006, control circuitry 504 determines that thequery did not return a list of media assets, process 1000 continues to1026. At 1026, process 1000 terminates. If, at 1006, control circuitry504 determines that the query returns a list of media assets, process1000 continues to 1008.

At 1008, control circuitry 504 selects a media asset from the list ofmedia assets returned by the query. For example, the query has returned“Media asset M” 166. Process 1000 continues to 1010 where controlcircuitry 504 parses the metadata associated with the media asset todetermine a third plurality of attributes. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may determine that “Media asset M” 166 has attributesanimation and Walt Disney Studios. Process 1000 continues to 1012, wherecontrol circuitry 504 selects an attribute of the third plurality ofattributes. For example, control circuitry 504 may select the animationattribute. Process 1000 continues to 1014, where control circuitry 504determines whether the attribute is included in the second plurality ofattributes. If, at 1014, control circuitry 504 determines that theattribute is included in the second plurality of attributes, process1000 continues to 1016. At 1016, control circuitry 504 updates the valueof the similarity coefficient for the media asset based on the weight ofthe attribute in the data structure associated with the user profileassociated with the second user.

For example, control circuitry 504 determines that the animation isincluded in the attributes data structure in Teddy's user profile andthe weight corresponding to it is 3. Control circuitry 504 may then add3 to the current value of the similarity coefficient for the media asset“Media asset M” 166.

Process 1000 continues to 1018. If, at 1014, control circuitry 504determines that the attribute is not included in the second plurality ofattributes, process 1000 continues to 1018. At 1018, control circuitry504 determines whether all attributes of the third plurality ofattributes have been accounted for. If, at 1018, control circuitry 504determines that all attributes of the third plurality of attributes havenot been accounted for, process 1000 reverts to 1012 where controlcircuitry 504 selects an attribute of the third plurality of attributes.If, at 1018, control circuitry 504 determines that all attributes of thethird plurality of attributes have been accounted for, process 1000continues to 1020. At 1020, control circuitry 504 determines whether thevalue of the similarity coefficient for the media asset is greater thana threshold value. Manners in which control circuitry 504 performs thisdetermination discussed previously are applicable here.

If, at 1020, control circuitry 504 determines that the value of thesimilarity coefficient for the media asset is greater than a thresholdvalue, process 1000 continues to 1022. At 1022, control circuitry 504generates for display, for the first user, the recommendation for themedia asset. For example, control circuitry 504 may determine that thesimilarity coefficient for “Media asset M” 166 is greater than athreshold value and generate for display for the first user display 164.Process 1000 continues to 1024. If, at 1020, control circuitry 504determines that the value of the similarity coefficient for the mediaasset is not greater than the threshold value, process 1000 continues to1024. At 1024, control circuitry 504 determines whether all media assetsof the list of media assets returned by the query have been accountedfor.

If, at 1024, control circuitry 504 determines that all media assets ofthe list of media assets returned by the query have not been accountedfor, process 1000 reverts to 1008 where control circuitry 504 selects amedia asset from the list of media assets returned by the query. If, at1024, control circuitry 504 determines that all media assets of the listof media assets returned by the query have been accounted for, process1000 continues to 1026. At 1026, process 1000 terminates.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 10 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

1. A method for recommending media assets to a first user for inclusionin a playlist for a second user, the method comprising: receiving, fromthe first user, a selection of a plurality of media assets to beincluded in the playlist for the second user; generating for display,for the second user, the plurality of media assets in the playlist;receiving, from the second user, an expression of disinterest in a firstmedia asset of the plurality of media assets; based on receiving theexpression of disinterest: retrieving metadata associated with the firstmedia asset identifying a content attribute from the retrieved metadatathat identifies content of the first media asset; retrieving a userprofile associated with the second user; and in response to identifyinga user profile attribute stored in the user profile, associated with thesecond user, that corresponds to the identified content attribute,decreasing a weight associated with the identified user profileattribute; determining a recommendation for a second media asset forinclusion in the playlist for the second user based on the updated userprofile associated with the second user; and generating for display, forthe first user, the recommendation for the second media asset.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the first user,an expression of disinterest in the recommendation for the second mediaasset; in response to receiving the expression of disinterest in therecommendation for the second media asset, updating the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the recommendation; and determining a recommendation for a thirdmedia asset for inclusion in the playlist for the second user based onthe updated user profile associated with the second user; and generatingfor display, for the first user, the recommendation for the third mediaasset.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset comprises receiving a request fromthe second user to remove the first media asset from the playlist priorto playback of the first media asset.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises receiving a request to terminate playback of the first mediaasset before a threshold time has elapsed from a start time of theplayback of the first media asset.
 5. The method of claim 1, whereinreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises determining that a proportion of the first media asset vieweduninterrupted by the second user is less than a threshold proportion. 6.The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the expression of disinterestin the first media asset comprises: receiving a feedback about the firstmedia asset from the second user; and determining that the feedbackcorresponds to a pre-defined expression of disinterest.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the user profile associated with the second userincludes a plurality of attributes and corresponding weights, whereinthe corresponding weights are initialized to default values based on ageof the second user.
 8. (canceled)
 9. The method of claim 1, whereinupdating the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset further comprises:determining whether number of expressions of disinterest received duringa period of time exceeds a threshold number of expressions ofdisinterest during the period of time; in response to determining thatthe number of expressions of disinterest received during a period oftime does not exceed the threshold number, updating the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset; and in response to determining that the numberof expressions of disinterest received during a period of time exceedsthe threshold number, making no changes to the user profile associatedwith the second user based on the expression of disinterest in the firstmedia asset.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, from thefirst user, the selection of the plurality of media assets to beincluded in the playlist for the second user further comprises:receiving, from the first user, a selection of a subset of media assetsof the plurality of media assets for which the expression of disinterestfrom the second user is to be disregarded; and wherein updating the userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset further comprises: determiningwhether the first media asset is included in the subset of media assetsfor which the expression of disinterest is to be disregarded; inresponse to determining that the first media asset is included in thesubset of media assets for which the expression of disinterest from thesecond user is to be disregarded, making no changes to the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset; and in response to determining that the firstmedia asset is not included in the subset of media assets for which theexpression of disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded,updating the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset.
 11. A system forrecommending media assets to a first user for inclusion in a playlistfor a second user, the system comprising: control circuitry configuredto: receive, from the first user, a selection of a plurality of mediaassets to be included in the playlist for the second user; generate fordisplay, for the second user, the plurality of media assets in theplaylist; receive, from the second user, an expression of disinterest ina first media asset of the plurality of media assets; based on receivingthe expression of disinterest: retrieving metadata associated with thefirst media asset; identifying a content attribute from the retrievedmetadata that identifies content of the first media asset; retrieving auser profile associated with the second user; and in response toidentifying a user profile attribute stored in the user profile,associated with the second user, that corresponds to the identifiedcontent attribute, decreasing a weight associated with the identifieduser profile attribute; determine a recommendation for a second mediaasset for inclusion in the playlist for the second user based on theupdated user profile associated with the second user; and generate fordisplay, for the first user, the recommendation for the second mediaasset.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: receive, from the first user, an expression ofdisinterest in the recommendation for the second media asset; inresponse to receiving the expression of disinterest in therecommendation for the second media asset, update the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the recommendation; and determine a recommendation for a third mediaasset for inclusion in the playlist for the second user based on theupdated user profile associated with the second user; and generate fordisplay, for the first user, the recommendation for the third mediaasset.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein receiving the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset comprises the control circuitryconfigured to receive a request from the second user to remove the firstmedia asset from the playlist prior to playback of the first mediaasset.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein receiving the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset comprises the control circuitryconfigured to receive a request to terminate playback of the first mediaasset before a threshold time has elapsed from a start time of theplayback of the first media asset.
 15. The system of claim 11, whereinreceiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the control circuitry configured to determine that aproportion of the first media asset viewed uninterrupted by the seconduser is less than a threshold proportion.
 16. The system of claim 11,wherein receiving the expression of disinterest in the first media assetcomprises the control circuitry configured to: receive a feedback aboutthe first media asset from the second user; and determine that thefeedback corresponds to a pre-defined expression of disinterest.
 17. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the user profile associated with the seconduser includes a plurality of attributes and corresponding weights,wherein the control circuitry is further configured to initialize thecorresponding weights to default values based on age of the second user.18. (canceled)
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein updating the userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset comprises the control circuitryfurther configured to: determine whether number of expressions ofdisinterest received during a period of time exceeds a threshold numberof expressions of disinterest during the period of time; in response todetermining that the number of expressions of disinterest receivedduring a period of time does not exceed the threshold number, update theuser profile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset; and in response to determiningthat the number of expressions of disinterest received during a periodof time exceeds the threshold number, making no changes to the userprofile associated with the second user based on the expression ofdisinterest in the first media asset.
 20. The system of claim 11,wherein receiving, from the first user, the selection of the pluralityof media assets to be included in the playlist for the second usercomprises the control circuitry further configured to: receive, from thefirst user, a selection of a subset of media assets of the plurality ofmedia assets for which the expression of disinterest from the seconduser is to be disregarded; and wherein updating the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset further comprises: determine whether the firstmedia asset is included in the subset of media assets for which theexpression of disinterest is to be disregarded; in response todetermining that the first media asset is included in the subset ofmedia assets for which the expression of disinterest from the seconduser is to be disregarded, make no changes to the user profileassociated with the second user based on the expression of disinterestin the first media asset; and in response to determining that the firstmedia asset is not included in the subset of media assets for which theexpression of disinterest from the second user is to be disregarded,update the user profile associated with the second user based on theexpression of disinterest in the first media asset. 21-50. (canceled)